


In This Building

by xxxraquelita



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:49:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxxraquelita/pseuds/xxxraquelita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt had never imagined working in a corporate office, but if he had, he would have imagined it to be boring and full of coworkers that drove him nuts -- which was exactly what it was like at his job. At least, that was it was like before the email that changed everything and turned his days of mindless tedium into something else. He never thought he'd look forward to going to work, but all it took was meeting the right person for that to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In This Building

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Klaine Big Bang. Thanks to pureklaination for putting the idea for it out there, aelora for being my beta, and missmardybum for the artwork.

There wasn’t much Kurt could say for his job other that it was just that – a job.

 

It wasn’t in a field that held any interest for him because the insurance business definitely wasn’t something he cared about getting into, it wasn’t particularly fun to do, and he didn’t feel like he fit in with the people in the office at all – no one seemed to get his sense of humor, which meant any time he tried to make a joke out of the dullness it always fell flat, and there was enough of an age gap between him any anyone else working there that it meant he didn’t relate to them. Sitting in a cubicle and listening to middle aged women speak about marital problems, or medical woes, or any number of things that didn’t hold relevance in his life, wasn’t his first choice for how to spend his time, but there he was.

 

The entire reason he had that job in the first place was for the flexibility. It was a job he’d picked up during the summer between the end of his first year of college and the impending second year coming in the fall, and he’d been straightforward with the woman interviewing him that once his semester started he wouldn’t be able to work full time. Thankfully that hadn’t been a problem, and he’d been able to transition into part-time hours during the week and as much as he wanted to work on the weekends once school had been back in session, and that was one of the reasons he didn’t mind working there. It certainly didn’t hurt that it paid almost double minimum wage for an entry level position and he couldn’t think of anywhere else he could make that kind of money while he was still in school.

 

When Kurt took those aspects into consideration, he could deal with the mindlessness of the job he did. His boss was nice, completely working with him and his schedule anytime something came up, the pay was good, and while it was boring, occasionally claims would come in that would make him laugh with either the ridiculousness of what happened or just the horrible phrasing that was used to explain it. It might have seemed like laughing at another person’s misfortune to an outsider, but that wasn’t really what he was doing – it was more of laughing at how it was said, or the fact that someone was filing a claim for something so trivial or clearly their own fault. When those were the only moments at work that brought a smile to his face, he really couldn’t begrudge himself them.

 

The only real difficulty that came with the job was that he had barely worked there for three months before he’d gone back to school, so while his training had been intense and all encompassing, the fact that he wasn’t constantly immersing himself in what he’d learned, combined with dealing with classes and everything he was learning in those on top of that, meant that it was easy for him to forget little things that didn’t come around often. His absence from the office during some of the normal working hours also meant that he didn’t always hear when procedures were changed – which happened often – until he was catching up on emails the next day or happened to do something the old way and get caught on it. Most frequently that seemed to happen when it had to do with the other departments they had to contact, because it seemed as though the staff in the departments upstairs got shifted around more than they stood still.

 

That was why when a new claim came in, and Kurt had double checked the system to make sure it was _actually_ new and not a duplicate, he gave pause when he checked the policy to see what coverage was available. There were several reasons that his department had to email the policy services department on the second floor of their building, and one of those reasons was when an address on the policy needed something added to it – which was exactly the situation he was staring at on his computer screen.

 

It wasn’t even like it was that big a deal, he supposed, because it was part of their jobs, but never once had he felt like he wasn’t inconveniencing them when he sent that email to whoever happened to be in charge of that task at any given time thanks to their rotating cast of staff. It was the same reason he felt vaguely annoyed any time he received an email from an adjuster requesting he fix something, or his phone rang with a call from the front desk, or anything that pulled him out of what he was doing at that moment – because those things were part of the job, yes, but they were also inconveniences to everything else he was doing. He never transferred calls to other people to avoid making them feel the same way, and avoided interrupting anyone as much as he was able, but when it came to dealing with the policies there was no other way.

 

“Evelyn?” Kurt asked as he pulled out his headphones, pausing the music he’d been listening to as he turned in his chair to speak to the woman in the cubicle behind him. “Is Maria still our contact person up in policy services?”

 

“No,” Evelyn replied, reaching across her desk for the little whiteboard she kept by her computer with an updated list of contacts in all the different departments. That was why he’d asked her before anyone else, because out of everyone she was most likely to have the most recent information. “They didn’t send out an email letting us know, but there’s a new person doing that up there – Blaine Anderson.”

 

“Thanks.” Kurt turned back to his computer and looked at the email he had opened, already typed and waiting but without a name in the greeting. He quickly found Blaine’s name in the address book and filled in the rest, sending it off and pending out the claim until he got a response back.

 

Part of the reason he hated them switching around the staff upstairs so much was because he felt slightly less bad about emailing someone and interrupting them if he’d built up some kind of rapport with them. Of course most of the time the rapport was just their knowledge that he replied right away to questions and was always sure to say thank you, because it wasn’t like they ever got past talking about the task at hand, but at least it was someone who knew he was going to be polite and with them he tended to figure out how quickly – or slowly – they tended to requests sent up to them from his team.

 

What he didn’t expect was that he got a response back barely a minute after he sent the email. There was a reason they were told to give the policy services department a 24-hour waiting period for those types of requests, because it wasn’t as though they were top priority compared to anything else the department upstairs had going on, and it usually took close to that amount of time to get a response – though previously there had been some good people in charge who had gotten back to him after only a few hours. Kurt had never heard back so quickly as he did then, and he opened the email to see if perhaps he’d forgotten to give them information they needed and that was why he’d gotten a response right away, for clarification.

 

 

> **To: Kurt Hummel**
> 
>  Hi Kurt,
> 
> This has been completed.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Blaine Anderson
> 
> Policy Services Team Lead

 

Kurt pulled up the program on his computer and checked the policy he’d emailed Blaine about, looking to make sure that the coverage had been added to the right place – not that he doubted Blaine’s word, it was just that he’d done it so quickly. Sure enough, as soon as it loaded on his computer he could see that it was there, and Kurt hoped that Blaine was going to be in his position up in that department for a while, since even with just one communication between them it was the best response he’d ever gotten from anyone up there. Maria, the person who’d had Blaine’s job before him, had only ever sent him responses of ‘done’ and maybe her signature if she remembered to add it, so Kurt especially appreciated Blaine formulating an actual reply that was more than one word.

 

 

> **To: Blaine Anderson**
> 
> Hi Blaine,
> 
> Wow, that was fast! Thanks!
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Kurt Hummel
> 
> Claims Support Specialist

 

Despite the fact that Kurt always sent a thank you, he couldn’t remember the last time that he’d gotten any kind of response to it. He never expected it, because he’d already disrupted the person by sending them something to do and he was sure they had better things to spend their time on than sending him an email back just to say ‘you’re welcome’ or something of the sort, but sometimes he wished they would. It was because he hadn’t gotten a response from at least the last four people who had done Blaine’s job that he was surprised when he got another one from Blaine, and when he opened it in his email, he couldn’t help but smile.

 

 

> **To: Kurt Hummel**
> 
> That’s my goal! :)

 

Out of all the people Kurt had interacted with while working there, no one had ever sent him emoticons before. It wasn’t that it was a break in professionalism, because to be fair it wasn’t like people seemed to care _too_ much about that kind of thing, it just seemed like a kind of whimsy that people didn’t buy into. When he really thought about it, he realized that the only other person who had was his boss – but she was also the same person who sent their department the cheesiest clipart type images whenever they did something good, like avoided making any errors for an entire day or hit a goal for the week. From her, he wasn’t surprised to get the occasional smiley face, but from anyone else it was unheard of.

 

 

> **To: Blaine Anderson**
> 
> :)

 

> **To: Kurt Hummel**
> 
> ;)

 

Kurt knew that it was a bit ridiculous that a simple semi-colon and parenthesis could make him smile like they did, and could make the rest of his day seem that much better – but that was how it was. That was what got him through the rest of his day, through the phone calls that came in from people who were rude, and the fact that they were flooded with work to be done. Every time he opened his email and saw that open on the screen as the last email he’d received, it made him smile.

 

It was the same when he came in the next day, a little tired from being up late the night prior because he’d been studying for an exam – and the first thing he saw when he started up his computer and opened his email was _that_. Despite his drowsiness, and despite the fact that his coffee was still a little too hot for him to attempt to drink, it made him smile and started his day off much better than he’d anticipated.

 

Maybe it was silly that an emoticon could cause such a reaction, but Kurt knew that it wasn’t just the emoticon itself but what it had felt like. Working there made him feel like he was being immersed in a world where he didn’t belong – and he was perfectly fine with not belonging there but it also had a tendency to make him feel like he was alone. There was no one in his department, or in others where he’d interacted on occasion, that seemed to relate to him in the least. The first time he’d felt like maybe someone did was with Blaine, and the fact that it had been through smiley faces was just a chance of medium.

 

That was why Kurt didn’t feel as bad when he came across a claim where he knew he was going to have to email policy services – email Blaine. With as quickly as he’d gotten a response the first time, he didn’t think that Blaine was nearly as inconvenienced by requests as his predecessor had been – and if he took a little longer than he had the first time, that was fine.

 

 

> **To: Blaine Anderson**
> 
> Hi Blaine,
> 
> Sorry to bother you, but I noticed there was a typo on this in the system. Could you please see that it’s corrected? We have something pending and we can’t do anything until it is.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Kurt Hummel
> 
> Claims Support Specialist

 

Once again, Kurt barely had a chance to move on to the next item on his list before the little window popped up in the corner of his screen, letting him know he had a new email.

 

 

> **To: Kurt Hummel**
> 
> Hi Kurt,
> 
>  
> 
> You’re not bothering me at all – more like giving a pleasant interruption to my day. This has been fixed. So, other than coming across errors, are you having a good day? :)
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Blaine Anderson
> 
> Policy Services Team Lead

 

It was an invitation for normal conversation that Kurt hadn't been expecting. Sure, Blaine had seemed friendly enough in the minimal interaction they'd had, but there was always the chance for a difference in what was written in text and the tone that had been used when writing it. Smiley faces could be friendly, silly, even flirty, but there was no real way to tell what was meant when they were sent when the recipient hadn't been able to see the person who had sent it. Kurt knew that _he_ had legitimately been smiling when he'd replied to Blaine's emails before, but it easily could have been that Blaine was sitting at his desk, straight faced, sending smiley faces to everyone who emailed him.

 

But it was difficult to mistake a polite question that opened a conversation as something that was just meant in passing. It would have been much easier for Blaine to just email him that the error had been fixed and for that to be the end of it, smiley face or no. The fact that Blaine had actually initiated keeping the conversation going when he wouldn't have been expected to, that was enough for Kurt to go off of in assuming at least a little of the tone that was being used. He wasn't trying to think on it _too_ much, but he assumed that it was friendliness beyond the generic politeness that permeated the people around him – because if it was just to be polite, there would have been no need for it in the first place.

 

> **To: Blaine Anderson:**
> 
> Today's been fine so far – if not a little boring. When it's slow and the claims coming in aren't entertaining... it gets boring. At least I have coffee to keep me from falling asleep at my desk, and music to keep me from having to listen to my coworkers talking. How's the weather upstairs? Other than people bothering you with spelling errors, I mean...
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Kurt

 

While he knew it was company policy to only use email for company business, it's not like it hadn't started out that way. Kurt had emailed him specifically for business to begin with, after all, and he knew for a fact that their emails weren't monitored as closely as corporate would have wanted them to believe. It was either that or the company _did_ monitor them but just didn't care, because every day he was at work he saw emails coming through from other people who worked there talking back and forth about families, sports they'd watched over the weekend, a whole smattering of non-work related topics and if _those_ people still had their jobs and still managed to talk about nothing to do with their work all the time, he hardly thought he was going to get in trouble for a little light conversation.

 

 

> **To: Kurt Hummel:**
> 
> I _definitely_ get what you mean about gabby coworkers. The ladies next to me only seem to have one volume, and that's loud enough for the entire nearby area to hear everything. Other than that, the weather's just fine, even with people emailing me with things to fix – which I don't mind at all, by the way. It keeps me on my toes and makes me look super good at my job when I knock them off my list. Plus, it gives me someone new to talk to. Hi. :)
> 
>  
> 
> Blaine

 

It felt like a door had been opened, or at least a small window of opportunity for hours at work not to seem nearly as dripping with boredom as they could tend to be. When Kurt was there, it tended to feel like he was in a box – the building was a box, his department was a smaller box, and then his cubicle was an even smaller box still, all stacked inside of each other, and he sat in all those boxes until the clock ticked for him to leave and then he worked his way out of the cold – because the building was always cold – florescent lit boxes to leave and feel like he was back to living life. The only thing that had made him feel not as drab about it all was the emails, and the only person who had managed it in the months he'd worked there was Blaine.

 

That was why it was nice that the conversation kept up for the rest of the day, easy and natural and mostly about nothing but that was just fine. It wasn't the _what_ of what they were talking about but mostly the fact that they were talking. Kurt knew that occasionally seeing an email pop up in the corner of his screen wasn't a hindrance to his work, and from what he could tell it wasn't one for Blaine either, so he didn't even have to feel the slightest bit bad about causing a distraction. He took a while to answer sometimes, and so did Blaine, but for the most part as soon as he saw the window pop up he clicked away from what he was working on to read it and reply. It was only when he was in the middle of something where he knew he'd lose his place if he looked away that he didn't check the email right away.

 

By the time the end of the day rolled around, Kurt was sure it was the most he'd smiled at work the entire time he'd been working there. There was something about being able to have a conversation with someone who seemed to appreciate his sense of humor, even though it didn't always read right over text as it might have out loud – but Blaine had seemed to get it all the same, had a lightness that didn't seem to be in the people around him, and genuinely _wanted_ to talk to him, just as Kurt wanted to talk to him in return. Blaine had sent an email half an hour before Kurt was done for the day saying he was heading out, but _I'll talk to you tomorrow! Have a great rest of your day. :)_

 

There was something to be said about looking forward to going to work. Kurt had never _dreaded_ it, because he didn't _mind_ his job, but he'd never actually driven to work with the thought of being excited to get to his desk, and start up his computer. But he was because he knew once he got there, once he got his programs opened and was logged into his email, he would get to talk to Blaine. He was glad that he could still get a normal amount of work done while maintaining a conversation – he’d checked his numbers the day before and they'd been on par with any day when he'd just been sitting staring at a screen with no one to talk to, so he knew it was true. If anyone were to call him out on it, he could easily show them that, and also knew that he would point out how the people around him essentially did the same thing all day but just face to face instead of over email. If anything, he was taking the less disruptive route, so he shouldn't be the first one reprimanded for it. With that in mind, it was easy to get into the mindset of being glad to be there – even though he doubted very much that his boss would ever notice or care about his emails.

 

It took a full week of emails back and forth before anything changed, and even just with those it was incredible how easy it all felt. Talking to Blaine felt like talking to someone he'd known his entire life, and that was what made it even better. Unlike with anyone else he talked to at work, he didn't have to think through what he was saying to censor it down to something they would understand or appreciate. Having someone who got his jokes, understood his frustrations without rolling their eyes (that he could see,) and could keep up in conversation with him from the moment he sat down to the time that Blaine left, because he always left earlier than Kurt, was more of a blessing than he could have hoped for. It didn't hurt that they seemed to have the same types of interests, as well, because whenever a movie or television show was brought up, it was like something clicked and _yes finally someone who understands._

 

That was why it was so great, and why Kurt looked forward to going to work, and that was all before he walked in one day and there was a brightly colored post-it note stuck to his keyboard, covered in handwriting that he didn't recognize.

 

_I was down here to talk to someone and thought I'd stop by to say hi for real, but then you weren't here. I love what you've done with the place. -Blaine_

 

Kurt's gaze immediately swept over his cubicle, looking at the surfaces of his desk and then up to the cubicle walls, taking it what was covering them. His desk was neat enough, because he always made sure to tidy it up at the end of the day since he couldn't stand the thought of coming into a mess waiting for him, but the walls were a different story. It wasn't that they were messy, because they weren't, it was just that his desk was sparse with what was on it and his cubicle walls were covered.

 

The entire building was just such a stereotypical office building, and that wasn't an environment where Kurt felt like he could thrive – not with its beige painted walls and equally beige colored cubicles. He needed color, something to make him feel like he could be inspired even if it wasn't inspiration for the work he was doing there. Sure, there were the parts of his cubicle closest to his computer screens, the easiest places to see were he to just turn his head to look, where he had charts and reminders for different procedures, different lists of people that he would commonly need to contact on chains of command, but other than that it was all just for his own peace of mind.

 

There were pictures, certainly, mostly of him and his dad but also a few of him and friends. The one closest to his computer was from when he was very young, one of the few pictures he had with his dad _and_ mom, and that was why it got to be in a small frame on his desk as opposed to tacked to the wall like the rest. Other than the pictures, it was all color. There were swatches of fabric that he would find in his bag -- when he'd be digging in it to find his phone or whatever food he'd remembered to bring for an afternoon snack -- left in there from a class but not needed anymore, and it would get put up on the wall with the rest. One of his coworkers, in a rare moment of conversation with him, had told him he should bring in some of his sketches so they could see them – and those had ended up going onto the walls, too. They were there as gentle reminders that he wasn't there for good, how it was just a job and he was aiming for so much more once he was done – and what he was working toward was right there in front of his face.

 

Looking around at all of it as he set his bag down on his desk beside where his computer was, Kurt had to wonder what it would look like to an outsider, to someone who didn't know him. He and Blaine spoke, sure, but they didn't _really_ know each other. They'd emailed back and forth for a week and never once could Kurt remember mentioning what he did outside of work, in terms of school or his hopes for the future. Fashion had never come up, but his cubicle was covered in it for anyone to see – for _Blaine_ to see. Sure, they worked in separate areas and the potential for them naturally crossing paths in the building was small, but that didn't mean they wouldn't.

 

It just made Kurt want to see what Blaine's cubicle looked like, to see what _he_ had up on the walls, if anything. There were people in his department who had nothing or practically nothing decorating their space, and he always thought it was as though they could just get up one day and leave and no one would be able to tell they'd ever been there. He wasn't sure if that was by design or if they just plain didn't feel like doing anything to make it less drab. Kurt knew that he would go a little crazy if he tried to do that, if he hadn't put anything on his cubicle walls to keep it from being a small beige box inside the bigger beige box of the building. Based on his conversations with Blaine, the general feeling he got about him, he had a feeling that Blaine wasn't one of those people, either.

 

 

> **To: Blaine Anderson**
> 
> Sneaking around my desk when I'm not here, hm? I see how it is.

 

The response was almost immediate, to the point where Kurt hadn't even been able to open up another program to start on something else while he waited to hear back.

 

 

> **To: Kurt Hummel**
> 
> No I wasn't! I had to come down to talk to one of the managers (it might have been yours, or maybe the operations department, I get your departments confused sometimes because you do such similar things) and I thought I'd stop by because I couldn't remember what time you came in on Tuesdays but I thought you might be there. No sneaking! I _did_ sneak around one of your coworker's desks to get a post-it note, but I don't think that counts. Anyway, I really do like how colorful it is. :)

 

In reality, Kurt knew he could easily just walk upstairs and find Blaine's cubicle for no reason other than the fact that he wanted to, but he didn't want to draw anything into question with his boss in case for some reason she _had_ noticed the amount of time he spent emailing and was looking for a reason to talk to him about it. There were other people who wandered around and talked to other people all the time, but considering the amount of time he and Blaine had talked about how annoying they were because at least with emailing they could be working on things at the same time, he didn't want to turn into one of them. He just had to wait for the right opportunity to come along so he could snatch it up, and then he would work his way upstairs to figure out where he was.

 

That was the reason that nothing happened that day outside of the ordinary emails, and not the next day, either. It wasn’t until Kurt found an actual reason to find his way upstairs that he actually did, and that came in the form of having to take a few policies up to the proper people so they could be certified. He hadn’t been the one to put them together, but one of his coworkers had and had been putting off taking them upstairs until they were headed in the direction of the stairs anyway. It was a window of opportunity that he gladly took, and even with the bonus of seeming extra helpful to his coworker since, in their eyes, he was doing them a favor – but really he knew it was exactly the opposite.

 

Truthfully, the second floor of their building was a place he didn’t particularly like to go. Despite the fact that it was basically the same layout as the floor beneath, it felt completely foreign and unfamiliar. Kurt had only been up there twice before – once when he’d originally been shown where to take the policies to find the people who certified them, and then the other time for a team meeting that had been held in the conference room right at the top of the stairs. Those were the only two places he knew to go without feeling like he was wandering around completely lost, but he was determined to find Blaine’s desk and if that took a little bit of feeling lost, he knew he could manage.

 

Once the policies had been dropped off, with the customary promise that they would be returned down to his desk within a couple days, Kurt started on his quest through the corridors of cubicles.  It only took a little bit of walking through part of the floor for Kurt to realize just why it felt so different than his floor, and that was because it was practically a labyrinth. The majority of the cubicles and offices on his floor were the actual adjusters, so they were bigger and that meant there were less, and then departments like his own were branched off to the side in little pods that were easy to find. On the second floor, they were all smaller departments with cubicles the same small size as his, and he was sure there was rhyme and reason to how they were laid out but he didn’t know for sure which departments were all included on the second floor or where one stopped and the next began.

 

For the most part Kurt kept near to where he’d delivered the policies, because he figured that would have to be near where Blaine was since he worked with policies as well, and he tried to keep from looking conspicuous.  He didn’t want to _look_ lost even if he felt like he was, and the fact that he passed by the desk where he’d been talking to someone not minutes before when he first got upstairs didn’t help him feel any less obvious about the fact that he was lingering.

 

Thankfully it only took a full lap and a half around the area – though he was sure he might have found it the first time around if he hadn’t been walking so briskly, as though he was walking with purpose and not at all out of place – before Kurt saw a nameplate that said BLAINE ANDERSON. He was tucked back in the corner, in an area of the cubicle maze that had prompted Kurt to think of it as a labyrinth in the first place, and maybe that was another reason Kurt hadn’t see it the first time he’d passed. Either way, he’d found him then, and he drew in a breath as he slipped back past the other cubicles to get to the right one.

 

For the briefest moment, before he fully got to the cubicle, Kurt wondered if he would have the kind of luck that Blaine had had and he might not even be there, but then he stepped past the dividing wall and there Blaine was, his back to Kurt as he worked on the computer in front of him.

 

Kurt took a few seconds just to take it in, the fact that he was seeing him for the first time even if it was just the back of his head and what he could see of him through the mesh back of his chair. He could see how impeccably his hair was styled, how he was wearing a cardigan to combat how freezing cold it was in the office, but that was about it. It wasn't like he wanted to stand there forever, seemingly lurking behind him if anyone were to glance over and see, but he didn't want to startle him by just starting to talk. He reached down and knocked lightly on the part of the desk closest to him – which was the generally accepted way around the office to approach someone at their desk, considering almost all desks and chairs were faced away from the opening of the cubicle and there was no real way to see someone coming.

 

"Excuse me..."

 

That was as far as Kurt got, because as he spoke he watched as Blaine reacted to hearing the knock, reaching up to pull earbuds away from his ears and swivel his chair around to face him, and once he was sitting there looking at him, words seemed to fail. Blaine was _gorgeous_ , and Kurt wondered briefly why he hadn't bothered looking at any of the pictures littered around the walls of the cubicle because then at least he might have been prepared for the man facing him – but he wasn't. He couldn't remember what he'd planned on saying next because he was too busy looking straight into Blaine's eyes, all deep and whiskey dark, a sparkle of a smile in them as he reached over to set his headphones on his desk.

 

"Kurt!" Blaine smiled, sitting up a little straighter in his chair, and Kurt watched as his eyes drifted down over what he was wearing, and he gave himself the opportunity to do the same with Blaine. He knew that he had come straight from class and had on what everyone downstairs considered an 'eclectic' outfit, but it was normal for him. Blaine looked just as out of place with the people around him – his cardigan snug on him over a polo shirt embellished with a bow tie, pants hugging his legs as he crossed them and rested his hands over his knee. Kurt remembered easily that ties or bow ties were out of the ordinary for anyone who worked there, considering the first time he'd worn one he'd been asked if he had a job interview somewhere else at lunch. All he knew was that he prided himself on his appearance, and it seemed to be that Blaine did too.

 

"Hi," Kurt said, speaking softly as to not disturb anyone working around them. Considering that he didn't know who Blaine's boss was or where they might be sitting, he didn't want to potentially get him in trouble. "I was just in the area and I thought I'd stop by..."

 

"Just in the area?" Blaine asked, raising an eyebrow with a soft smile spreading across his features. "It's not quite your normal neighborhood."

 

"True, but I had to drop off some things and figured I might as well return the favor of sneaking around your cubicle," Kurt replied, waving his hand airily before letting it come to rest on his hip. "You kind of ruined my plan what with being here and all."

 

"Oh _I'm_ sorry." Blaine looked more amused than anything else, and he leaned back in his chair slightly as he looked up at Kurt, his eyes sparkling even more. Even though the florescent lights were harsh and Kurt hated them on a normal day, they made little flecks of gold seemingly glitter in Blaine's eyes, so he had to give them a pass for the time being because it was almost mesmerizing. "I told you before; I didn't sneak around your cubicle! I just glanced at it and stole a post-it note from your coworker because yours had writing on it and I didn't want to take it off to get a new one."

 

"Yes, that all sounds like quite the perfect story, but I'm not so sure I believe it," Kurt replied teasingly, taking a small step in and perching on the edge of Blaine's desk where it wrapped around to the end of the cubicle, finally letting his gaze pull away from Blaine and look over the pictures on the walls. They were mostly of Blaine with the same group of friends over and over, but there were also one or two that he could tell were family – because if nothing else, everyone in the frame resembled each other enough that there was no way they couldn't be. "You have a nice place up here."

 

"It's not nearly as bright or colorful as yours," Blaine said, turning his chair slightly to follow Kurt's gaze over to the pictures. "Though the lack of brightness is my own doing, considering that one light bulb burned out months ago and I told the maintenance guy not to replace it." Kurt glanced up at the ceiling, seeing the panel of lights overhead and the fact that out of the three long light bulbs inside, only two of them were lit. "It's not that much of a difference, but enough to keep it from being horribly bright."

 

"I might have to sabotage one of my lights once I go back down." Kurt glanced back down to him, a little smile turning up the corner of his mouth. "Because colorful I like, but near headache inducing brightness – I didn't realize it was so easy to get it to stop."

 

"I didn't even have to sweet talk him or anything," Blaine replied, his grin growing as his eyes met Kurt's again. "He asked if I wanted it replaced, I said no thanks, and it was a done deal."

 

It was so easy to sit there and talk to Blaine about something as boring as light bulbs that Kurt didn't even remember the uneasiness he'd had about wandering around the second floor in the first place, and the slight concern that had been lingering in the back of his mind about how it could have been different face to face than just in writing as it had been up until that point. Talking to someone just through text was one thing, but there was always the chance it wouldn't translate to being there in front of each other – though he was aware the problem usually happened in reverse. He hadn't known what Blaine was like in real life, and Blaine hadn't known anything about him, either, though he had the slight upper hand of seeing pictures of Kurt in his cubicle, but that hadn't stopped him from keeping up their conversations and growing friendship.

 

Plus, Blaine was almost unbearably cute. Of course Kurt had felt momentarily stunned by him the second he'd seen him, when he'd turned that chair around and those eyes had been looking straight at him, beneath those eyelashes that Kurt was sure most people would kill to have. It was good that everything felt just as easy and normal in person as it had immediately when they'd started emailing, because that concern that it would have been awkward had been there, despite Kurt's attempts to push it down. As he sat there watching him for a moment, not wanting to make it seem like he was staring because then it _might_ have become awkward, a brief thought flickered through his mind and made him smile a little more.

 

Seeing him there like that, he was almost certain that Blaine actually smiled every time he sent a smiling emoticon.

 

"So were you _actually_ just in the area or was that a made up excuse for coming up here to see me?" Blaine asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

 

"I was bringing up some policies," Kurt answered, watching as Blaine's nose scrunched slightly as though he hadn't expected there to have been an actual reason for Kurt to be there. "It's true!"

 

"Mhmm, sure," Blaine teased, rolling his eyes a little and grinning up at him. "So if I go over to Patti's desk, there are going to be giant stacks of paper waiting to be signed?"

 

"Yes, there will be," Kurt replied, folding his arms loosely across his chest. "You can doubt me all you want, but if you go over there, you'll find three policies with notes on them to be brought back down to me once they're done."

 

"Alright, alright, fine..." There was a short pause as Blaine's phone rang, but all he did was glance at the number, then reach over to silence it. Kurt quirked an eyebrow at him when he looked back up, but Blaine just shrugged. "It's not important. They'll leave a message and I'll call them back."

 

"With an attitude like that, it's a wonder you reply to my emails as quickly as you do," Kurt teased, and Blaine chuckled softly.

 

"Well your emails are ones I'm glad to receive and reply to," he said, inching his foot forward a little to pull himself that much further toward Kurt in the small space of his cubicle. "Even when they're actually work related ones. Those are always easy, which is why I get them done so quickly."

 

"See, I never knew these things were so easy to do because everyone before you has always taken a lot longer to get them done," Kurt explained, letting his arms unfold and his hands rest down against the edge of the desk on either side of him. "So I'm not sure why that was, but I do appreciate how quickly you do them, and I know everyone else in my department does, too."

 

"I think they would save everything until a certain time of day and then just bust through all the requests at once?" Blaine offered, his brow furrowing as he tilted his head back slightly to look up at him better. "Which I can understand the merits of, especially if there's something else going on, but I like getting it done right away. I figure if I do it as soon as I see it, there's no way I can accidentally forget about it or skip over it when I'm going through my list. Plus, then it gets back to the people who need it and they can go on with what they're doing as well."

 

"I like the way you think," Kurt replied, smiling softly. "Not that there was a problem with it being done the other way, but the way you do it makes everything a lot easier to deal with. We don't have to check back, or go back to it hours later... it's great."

 

"Why thank you," Blaine said in a low murmur, a smile spreading across his features again. "I do my best. No one's had any complaints so far, so I figured I must be doing fine."

 

"If anyone complained about how you were doing your job, clearly there would be a problem with them."

 

Kurt hesitated, because he didn't want to say what he knew he should say next, but after talking about how quickly Blaine did his job and how great it was, he was that much more aware that he was standing there distracting him from it. He could have stood there all day and talked to him, he was sure, but that wouldn't have been a good idea from either of their standpoints. It wasn't as though they wouldn't go straight back to emailing back and forth as soon as he was back downstairs, and he'd served his original purpose for going up there in the first place, so he knew he shouldn't be too sad about it – it was just that it was so nice to be standing there and _seeing_ him as he talked to him.

 

"Well, I should probably be getting back downstairs..."

 

From the way Blaine's expression fell, Kurt could tell he wasn't the only one who didn't want it to happen. It wasn't as though he had _too_ much of a choice, considering that everyone in his department knew where he'd been going when he'd set off and it wasn't as though taking something upstairs usually took more than a couple minutes to make the whole trip. The people who certified the policies weren't exactly chatty, which was always a good thing because it saved him from having to try and make polite conversation, but it also meant that excuses of getting held up weren't easy to come by.

 

"Right, you have work to do," Blaine replied, nodding once and uncrossing his legs as he put his hands on the armrests of his chair and pushed to his feet. Kurt had been able to tell that Blaine was shorter than him just from taking him in when he'd been sitting there, but he hadn't been sure exactly how much. With Blaine standing there in front of him, he could appreciate all of him more – the way his clothes fit onto his body when he wasn't scrunched into a chair, how his posture made him seem a little taller than he actually was, and the way his features were that much more captivating when they were closer to him than when they'd been at a completely different level. "Well, it was good to see you."

 

"And you," Kurt said, standing up from where he'd been sitting against the desk and offering Blaine a smile. "I'll have to make sure to swing by next time I have something to bring up here, now that I know where you're hidden away."

 

"I _am_ kind of hidden, it's impressive you found me at all," Blaine replied, glancing around his cubicle a moment before smiling at him. "I'm glad you did, though."

 

"Of course I did. Like I said, I was trying to return the favor and sneak around your cubicle..."

 

"I didn't sneak," Blaine sighed, rolling his eyes playfully before reaching over, his finger tracing over the brooch Kurt was wearing on the lapel of his jacket – a stingray, his head tilting as he watched his fingertip move across the metal. "I like that."

 

"Thanks," Kurt murmured, glancing down to watch as his hand pulled back away. "I do, too."

 

"I would hope so, otherwise it would be a little silly for you to be wearing it," Blaine teased softly, shaking his head before looking up at him, just enough through his eyelashes to make Kurt's breath catch in his throat. "Well, you'd better go before they send a search party for you, though I think you could probably manage to hide back here for a while before they find you."

 

"As tempting as that sounds," Kurt replied, rocking back on his heels toward the opening of the cubicle, his gaze still fixed on Blaine, "I _should_ save them the trouble."

 

"I'm sure you'll find something to send my way to fix for you sooner or later," Blaine said with a wink, a light grin dancing across his features as he shifted back to sit in his chair again, eyes not leaving Kurt's. "So I guess I'll just have to wait for that, but I'm sure I'll be hearing from you soon."

 

"I'm sure you will be," Kurt said, nodding and giving him a parting smile before ducking out of the cubicle before he found himself lingering any longer.

 

He still walked briskly as he made his way back through the cubicles and corridors to the stairs, not needing to seem like he knew where he was going anymore because he already did, but more so because he knew he should get back downstairs. It would have been so easy to stay there and talk to Blaine, so easy to just keep sitting on the edge of his desk and keep the running conversation and commentary of the day like they normally had, but in person instead of what they normally did, but there was little chance Blaine would have been able to get any work done in that situation – and absolutely no way Kurt would have.

 

No one questioned where he'd been once he got back downstairs, and he just slid into his seat, turning his chair back to face his computer as he reached for his headphones. All he could see when he did that was how Blaine had looked when he'd taken his out and turned around, how Kurt had felt like he was getting the breath taken from him the first time he'd see Blaine sitting there. He knew he hadn't even tried to come up with a picture in his head of what Blaine looked like, and even if he had there was no way it ever would have come close to how he actually was – not when Blaine looked like _that_.

 

It would be easier the next time, he was sure, because once he knew where Blaine sat that meant there wouldn't be the tedious quest of glancing at the nameplate on every cubicle he passed in an attempt to find him. The beeline could quite easily be made up the stairs and back through the path to the corner, finding the only desk he'd seen with a light bulb burnt out over it, and he knew if he found a way to naturally leave his desk to do something, he could easily escape up there for a minute or two here and there. He didn't want to bother him, especially if he was in the middle of something, and just popping up in person was completely different than an email that could be gotten to once a task was done or when a moment came when it could be read.

 

Plus Kurt knew it would be far too easy to fall into that habit, and then if it became noticeable that he was disappearing all the time, his boss was sure to say something. She might not notice on her own, but there were plenty of other people in the department and Kurt knew how fast rumors started and gossip spread. That was the other reason he was so careful how he went about things. As much as he would have enjoyed stealing away to have conversations, actual conversations where he could hear Blaine talking to him, watch the way his expression shifted as he spoke, he knew it wasn't practical to make it a common thing.

 

That didn't mean there weren't other things that could be done, which was how the post-it notes battle started and quickly escalated, though Kurt was adamant it was Blaine's fault.

 

With how Kurt came in later in the day, it was easy for Blaine to get to his desk when he wasn't there. That was how it came to be that there was a post-it note waiting on his keyboard when he got there after classes. It started out small, just a simple _'Hi! I was just in the area...'_ in handwriting that Kurt easily recognized as Blaine's despite there not being a signature on it. There had been an email waiting for him when he'd started up his computer as well, something about how he'd thought it might be nice to come into work and see something more personal than just an electronic something-or-other to start his day. Considering how his entire day at work was spent on the computer, he appreciated the sentiment, because it _was_ nice.

 

There wasn't one the next day, but then there was the day after that, and Kurt figured that he should return the favor. Sure, he came in after Blaine was already there, but Blaine left before he did at the end of the day. It was easy enough to swing by the second floor on his way out of the office – sure, it wasn't exactly on his way, but it wasn't as though it particularly took _that_ much time to go to Blaine's desk and write out a note to leave. It also afforded him the chance to look a little closer at all the different decorations across the cubicle walls, not just the pictures but the little mementos as well. He had fabric swatches, and Blaine had theatre tickets and pictures from shows. Kurt tried not to linger too much, not wanting to actually be sneaking around after they'd teased each other about it so much, and just left a note scrawled on the top post-it note on the pad next to Blaine's keyboard.

 

_Two can play at that game..._

 

When he came in the next morning, the post-it note was stuck to the top of the frame of his computer monitor, right at eye level when he sat down.

 

_IT’S ON._

 

From then on it was practically all out war, though a fun war at that. It had started so small, just those innocent little notes in the morning and being left at night for Blaine to find the next day, but it quickly became a sneaky affair. Kurt would be sitting there, working as usual, and then when he'd turn around to get up to get something to drink or go to the bathroom, there would be a post-it sitting on the part of his desk closest to the opening, like it had been dropped there while someone was walking by – which was exactly what had happened. The first time, he hadn't been able to figure out how it had gotten there until he read it, and the two words on it were enough to tell him everything.

 

_You're it._

 

Kurt's response had been immediate, because he'd reached back to grab his post-its and a pen from the jar on his desk, slipping them into his pocket as he headed off to get his water – but not without going upstairs, scrawling _'No tag-backs._ ' on the top post-it note and walking quickly but as quietly as possible back to Blaine's desk, peeking around the wall just long enough to make sure he was busy at his computer before slipping the note onto his desk, turning on his heel, and going straight back downstairs.

 

That was how it started, and that was how it kept going. It was easy to squeeze retaliation into any time

he was getting up from his desk in the first place, and the fact that he didn't stop to talk to anyone made it barely add any time on at all. As much as getting emails from Blaine had always brightened Kurt's day and made him smile, it was like that was all taken to a whole new level of happiness every time he turned around and saw a note sitting there on his desk. They rarely said anything out of the ordinary, and never really anything meaningful, but it wasn't so much what they said but more so the fact that they existed. It was something that made a boring workplace fun, and the fact that Blaine went out of his way to sneak down to his desk meant a lot – and Kurt hoped it meant the same to Blaine that he returned the favor just as often as he was given it.

 

Some days there were more than others, some days there were less, but that was always how it had been with the emails, too, and it just dependent on how heavy the workload was for either of them. Kurt loved the fact that it didn't matter if they went through a day or two where they barely talked, because as soon as it started up again it was as though they'd never stopped. It was a comfort he'd never been able to find with someone else before, especially not so easily and fast, and every time it happened he was grateful for the fact that Blaine had gotten promoted to the position that he had and that Kurt had needed to email him when he had. It would have happened eventually, but he also knew he'd needed a pick-me-up the day that it had and Blaine had been that pick-me-up every work day since.

 

Of course there were days when having a pick-me-up was more necessary than others, and Kurt knew that days when they had meetings were definitely among them. It wasn’t that he minded the meetings, because generally he accepted any time away from his desk, and the monotony of processing tasks, as a blessing, but more so that they were boring to him. There was the rare chance that his boss might snap at one of his coworkers if they were being condescending, but that had only happened once in the time that he was there and he treasured the memory rather than anticipated it happening again. As it was, he knew it would just be roughly an hour of sitting in the conference room and listening to his boss read from the meeting notes she’d emailed them the day prior – hardly riveting material.

 

That was how Kurt found himself up on the second floor in their normal meeting room at the top of the stairs. He’d left to get there a minute before he usually would have, sneaking back to Blaine’s cubicle and dropping off a post-it that simply said _‘Meeting. Bleh._ _:(_ _’_ before going to the conference room to claim his seat. There were only two real options – either facing the wall or facing the windows that gave view of the area at the top of the stairs and straight across to the conference room on the other side. Kurt preferred to sit facing the windows, if at all possible, because at least then he had the entertainment of watching people go by while his boss talked through numbers which he knew were important but didn’t really care too much about.

 

It was where he always sat, so he didn’t really think much of it, but as it turned out it was the best choice he could have made.

 

The first time Blaine walked by, Kurt was almost certain he didn’t realize he was there, just based on how he didn’t glance into the room until he was almost all the way past it. Kurt only saw him because he _always_ looked at the people walking by, whether he knew them or not. When Blaine walked past, Kurt’s gaze followed him the whole way, eyes meeting his when Blaine finally did look in to see the people sitting there, and Kurt didn’t miss the way his eyes lit up when he saw him. A slightly mischievous smirk turned up the corners of Blaine’s mouth as he disappeared from view, and Kurt glanced down at his meeting notes to try and hide the smile that was quickly spreading across his features.

 

Kurt lost track of the amount of times Blaine passed in front of the conference room, but he didn’t run out of things to notice each time. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen him before he walked in front of the windows, because he’d gotten a glimpse like he always did when he stopped by his desk – but it was always the same type of deal, where he’d peeked just enough to see that he wasn’t paying attention before he dropped off the note. That made it so he could still enjoy picking up the little things when he saw him again, like how his hair looked soft and slightly curly despite clearly being tamed down, the way his sweater vest was snugly fit on him, but not nearly as snug as the way the cuff of his polo shirt was against his bicep when he walked by with his arm bent so he could see what was on the paper he was holding. He couldn’t see much beyond that, because of the chairs and coworkers blocking his view of the lower half of Blaine, but he had more than enough to take in as it was.

 

It wasn’t as though he could really do much other than watch him go by, knowing that anything out of the ordinary would most likely draw the attention of at least his coworkers who were sitting facing him. Kurt was sure Blaine knew that, which was why _he_ wasn’t doing much beyond apparently taking laps around the second floor.

 

By the time the meeting was over, Kurt had almost wholeheartedly ignored everything that had happened in it. He wasn't sure how he was expected to pay attention when Blaine kept walking by like that, and he also wasn't sure how Blaine had been able to get any work done the whole hour – or if he'd even tried to do so. That was an unfair assumption, considering how much pride Blaine took in doing his work well, so Kurt pushed it from his mind as he headed back down to his desk, meeting notes in hand, along with the pad of paper and pen he always took and never used, because anything he might have needed to write down was already typed up on the notes.

 

The fact that Blaine had been so present there near the conference room had pushed the thought of what might be at his desk out of Kurt's mind, or at least it had until he turned the corner into his cubicle and saw the amount of post-it notes scattered across it. He glanced over his shoulder to see his coworkers settling at their own desks before he pulled his chair out and sat, gathering all the little squares of paper in so he could sift through them all.

 

_You look bored. Our meetings are always boring, too._

_I feel like I should invent an emergency to get you pulled out of there._

_I'm not pulling the fire alarm for you, Kurt Hummel._

_It's a pretty slow day in my department, in case you were wondering._

_Getting all this exercise is kind of nice! Way better than just sitting at my desk instead._

_I hope you don't have these meetings often._

_How long is this meeting, anyway?_

 

Kurt smiled as he read through them, setting them off to the side one by one in the little stack of notes that was always there – the ever growing pile of post-its from Blaine. At some point he knew he would need to not be keeping them there on his desk, though they were also right beside the post-its that were actually work related, so he figured it wasn't _too_ bad to have them there. Plus it was nice to look over and have that reminder of all the times he'd turned around and had a smile brought to his face because of a note appearing on his desk. If he wanted, he could even see the chronology of them, considering they were stacked in the order he'd received them. It wasn't like Blaine hadn't done the same at his desk, because Kurt had seen his stack one evening when he'd been going up to leave something for the morning.

 

It was nice to have that slight reprieve before jumping back into work, which had definitely piled up in the hour they'd been away with no one to pay attention to the tasks coming in. That was the other part of meetings that Kurt didn't particularly enjoy, because it always felt like a scramble to try and catch up once they were done. The number of tasks that popped up on the screen as available and in need of attention was daunting, like all the adjusters had known they were away from their desks and decided to send over everything all at once. Kurt just pulled his phone over, tucked his headphones into his ears, and pressed play to let his music put him in the zone so he could work through as much as he could in the shortest amount of time possible.

 

With everyone focusing in like that, trying to get their workload down to a manageable amount to look at, it didn't take long for them to get to a point where Kurt felt like he could breathe, and his gaze shifted over to the stack of post-it notes again. If everything was under control, as it had gotten, he didn't feel nearly as bad about skipping up to the second floor to try and give Blaine some sort of response to everything he'd done while he had been in the meeting. He pulled his pad of post-it notes over and scrawled a quick message on the top one before pulling out his headphones and turning his chair to leave – but then he stopped.

 

Sitting on the end of his desk, where the notes always tended to appear, was a Starbucks cup with a post-it note stuck to the top of the lid. Kurt stretched his leg out and dug his heel into the floor, pulling himself the short distance to be able to reach the drink and bring it in so he could see what was written on the note. The drink was still hot, which meant it definitely hadn't been sitting there long at all, and he glanced at the note on top that simply said, _'I thought you could use this after all that.'_

 

Glancing over across the corridor between the cubicles, he assessed his coworkers who were all within eyesight, and none of them seemed to have noticed anything at all, so he turned back to face his computer and scooted his chair back in like normal. Kurt took the note off the lid and set the cup on his desk, turning it and inching down the drink sleeve so he could look at the letters written in the boxes on the side. His eyebrow rose when he saw his normal drink written out, and even with his name printed neatly near the top. Abandoning his previous plan, and fortifying himself with a sip of coffee, he crumpled the note he'd written before and tossed it into the trash can before writing out a new one. As soon as that was done, only taking a few seconds to do, he turned in his chair again and made his way toward the familiar staircase – drink and post-it note in hand.

 

There was no way he could just drop the note off like he usually did, not when he had a non-fat mocha in hand that had appeared seemingly out of thin air at just about the precise moment he would have wanted one if he'd even been thinking about coffee. That was why Kurt made his way back through the cubicles, stood in the entrance to Blaine's, and reached down with his free hand to rap lightly on the desk to get his attention.

 

"Just a second," Blaine murmured as he slowly took out his headphones with one hand, the other still clicking away with his mouse before he closed out of the window he'd been working on and turned in his chair, eyebrows raising in surprise when he saw Kurt standing there. "Oh, hi."

 

"Hi," Kurt replied, lifting the drink in his hand and tilting it slightly toward Blaine as if it was a toast. "You know my coffee order."

 

"Of course I do," Blaine answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world that he should. Kurt raised an eyebrow at him and a slow grin spread across Blaine's features. "We've previously discussed at length how disgusting the coffee in the break room here is, and it's not like you don't have your own coffee often. I _do_ see what's on your desk, you know, when I go past. You always have the sleeve off and I saw what was written on the side, and I remembered."

 

The fact that he almost always swung by Starbucks on his way into work from class hadn't even crossed Kurt's mind, or the fact that he took the sleeves off so he could steal the warmth from the coffee for his hands, or that his coffee cup sat on the side of the desk where Blaine was most likely to see it. It wasn't something he would have expected him to notice, out of everything else that might have been there, or the fact that he came and went so quickly that Kurt didn't realize he'd had time to look. At least there was a coffee cup on Blaine's desk then, too, so Kurt knew that he hadn't just run out on his behalf or anything like that.

 

"I thought it might be good to have after having to sit through that," Blaine continued, shrugging slightly and reaching for his own coffee to take a sip before smiling again. "Plus it didn't take too much convincing to get permission to go for a coffee run, I just had to bring back something for my boss and I could have taken all the time I wanted."

 

"I definitely could use this after that meeting," Kurt said quietly, his thumb running along the seam of the cup as he looked down at it. Everything about it was thoughtful, right down to the way his name was written on it with such precision – and that part was definitely Blaine's handwriting, not the writing from the barista who had written everything else on his cup. "It was kind of a rough one."

 

"It looked like a whole lot of no fun," Blaine replied, his nose scrunching slightly as he held his coffee with both hands, resting it on his lap. "We have team meetings every so often and they're always boring."

 

"It was just the same as it always is, which is not fun," Kurt admitted, shrugging a shoulder and leaning against the desk. "Plus it makes everything that much crazier when we get back downstairs. I'm glad that _you_ didn't have a whole lot to do this afternoon, because you definitely made the whole meeting ordeal much better."

 

"I try, I try," Blaine said, his smile spreading further across his features and reaching to his eyes, making them sparkle that much more in the slightly dimmed light of his cubicle. "I should be thanking you, though, because I think that's the most exercise I've gotten on a work day in a long time. I don't even know how many stairs I climbed, I lost track."

 

"You're welcome," Kurt teased, his gaze flickering over to Blaine's phone when it rang, the light on it flashing and drawing Blaine's eyes over to it as well, and he reached over to silence the ringer. "I should be getting back downstairs anyway."

 

"Alright, I guess I can live with that," Blaine replied, smiling and giving Kurt a little wave before reaching for the receiver of his phone and picking it up before the call went to voice mail. "This is Blaine Anderson..."

 

Kurt rocked back on his heels to leave but then remembered the note he'd brought with him. He didn't want to interrupt Blaine's call, especially since he'd just picked it up after Kurt had essentially said he was leaving, so he just leaned over and slid the note onto the desk in front of where Blaine was facing, watching as his gaze flickered down to read it.

_Thanks for the coffee._

 

It was so simple but something that meant so much, and Kurt went back to his desk with a little more of a smile on his face than when he'd left, which was saying something. The rest of the day seemed to fly by with how much more work came in, and he wasn't sure he would have been able to handle it as well as he did if he didn't have the fortification of caffeine and sugar that had come in the form of his mocha – which he was sure was probably going to make him jittery late at night since he'd already had one that day, but it was plenty worth it in his eyes. Actual work kept him busy for the rest of the day to the point that between that and the point of the day the meeting had been in the first place, he didn't have the chance to try and leave his desk again until the very end of the day, and when he turned there was a note sitting on his desk for him to add to his pile.

_You're welcome._

 

More than anything it made him sad that he didn't know what Blaine drank, because he would have more than appreciated the opportunity to return the favor, but he'd seen Blaine's coffee cup and there had been a sleeve on it, which had kept him from being able to see what was marked on the side. He knew Blaine got coffee every day, but it was always in the mornings and gone long before Kurt got in to work, and he wasn't about to go scrounging around in the trash can to figure out what it was. There was only one Starbucks anywhere near their office, however, and considering that they were both apparently regulars there, it seemed like the only possible option other than straight up _asking_ Blaine was to talk to the baristas and see if any of them had insight that could help him.

 

It helped that Blaine dressed distinctively, and Kurt was sure that it helped that _he_ did too, because it meant that they were more recognizable and easy to pick out of the massive swarm of people that Kurt was sure the baristas there saw every day. Usually when he went in on his way to work it had calmed down, but he'd been there in the mornings sometimes before classes, if it was a particularly rough day looming ahead, and he'd seen what the morning rush was like. Assuming that was when Blaine got his coffee, Kurt could only hope that he stuck out enough in one of their minds for them to remember what he got – a skill he knew a lot of the baristas there possessed because he couldn't remember the last time he'd walked in the door and not had one of them ask if he was getting his regular drink.

 

There were a few who'd known who Kurt was talking about, but didn't know what he drank because it was just brewed coffee so it didn't go through the bar, and Kurt had been about to lose hope in knowing whether Blaine drank it _black_ or if he put anything in it when the supervisor had come out from the back and helped him out.

 

"Blaine? Yeah, I know him! He's really sweet, super cute, and always tips well," she'd said, leaning against the counter and offering Kurt a smile. "He just gets coffee, but I know he puts cream, sugar, and a little bit of cinnamon in it. I remember because he got the coffee cake once and told me how well it went with how he does his coffee. Why, did you want to get one?"

 

Kurt hadn't, not then at least; because he figured he would save it for a day when it seemed like Blaine could use it. There was always a call for coffee at the office because having something warm to drink, and especially something that would perk someone up for part of the day, was something that most everyone there appreciated. It was just that most of their coworkers were fine drinking the vaguely coffee flavored water that could be found in the break room. While Kurt knew that Blaine probably would have appreciated it on any day of the week, he also was keeping in mind that Blaine had known his coffee order way before he'd actually gotten it for him, that he'd saved that knowledge for when it could be most effectively used, and Kurt wanted to do the same for him.

 

It was knowledge that Kurt kept tucked away in his mind, always lingering there and coming to the surface every time he stopped in to get his own coffee on the way to work, the simple combination of coffee with cream, sugar, and cinnamon creeping out of his subconscious. It meant that he thought of Blaine before he got to the office even more than he had before – and he would have been lying if he tried to say that he didn't, because he did. How was he supposed to avoid it when the first thing that came to mind when he thought of work were post-it notes, specifically those with Blaine's handwriting on them? To avoid thinking about Blaine would have been impossible, and Kurt wouldn't have wanted to try to see if he could.

 

Truth be told, Blaine got him through a lot more than just the boring times at work. Kurt enjoyed school and his studies, but that didn't mean that he always looked forward to going to classes. It was just what he had to do, to get through the grunt work of it all so he could graduate and go out into the world, make his own way in it. He knew that it was important to know what he was doing and where he was coming from, which is why he hadn't just gone off on his own in the first place and tried to make a name for himself. That wasn't the right way to do it, and he _knew_ he didn't have the background knowledge and skill set to try. Going through a few years of gaining knowledge, making sure he was putting himself on the right path, that would be well worth it in the end.

 

But that still didn't mean that he loved it all the time, because it could get tedious and frustrating, and sometimes the people around him were so petty he felt like he was right back in high school. When that was what he dealt with in his mornings, and when he woke up he didn't know whether it would be a pleasant day or one of the ones where he wanted to crawl right back into bed, it was nice to know that he had something to look forward to – some _one_ to look forward to.

 

That was what was so great about having Blaine, because he wasn't just the person who kept Kurt sane at work, who made him smile and laugh amidst the tedium of his job and coworkers, and his notes that he left on Kurt's desk weren't just a way to kill time throughout the day. Blaine was this person that Kurt felt like he'd been looking for for a long time, because out of all the people he'd met, worked with, been friends with, any of them, he'd never found anyone like Blaine, anyone who could make him smile with even the simplest of words. He'd never known someone who he could say, without any question in his mind, that they were the highlight of his day every day and he knew he could count on that beyond anything else.

 

That was why Kurt wanted to make sure it was the right time when he got coffee for Blaine, because he could only hope that he gave Blaine even a fragment of what Blaine gave him – not just the physical act of giving coffee or writing notes, because that would have been something that could be measured in a relatively easy way. Kurt hoped, truly hoped, that he gave Blaine any kind of peace of mind like Blaine gave him, that he brought even close to the amount of smiles to his face that Blaine gave to him.

 

It wasn't until a while after the meeting, after the coffee, that Kurt saw his opportunity. There had been so many post-it notes in the meantime, so many emails and phone calls – both work related and otherwise – and he wasn't sure if he was ever going to find the right time in the midst of it all. It was just so easy to keep going as things were, but with that yearning inside him that he should do something, say something, to let Blaine know how much his friendship meant. Kurt was glad when the opening finally came, presented in such an unobtrusive way that no one else might have seen it for what it was, but he did.

 

_Tomorrow is going to be so long. I'm already tired just thinking about it._

 

There wasn't much to go on beyond that, because Kurt didn't know exactly what Blaine had planned for his evening, but he knew if he himself was anticipating being exhausted, it was almost like that would make him even more so than he would have been otherwise. He had his nights, the ones where he was up late studying for an exam or working on a project, and he knew what a zombie it could turn him into – one that wouldn't function like a normal person without an extra few shots of espresso in his coffee, if nothing else.

 

When Kurt stopped in to get his coffee the next day on his way into work, he finally gave into the reminder of Blaine's order in his mind, getting the coffee from the supervisor who had told him about it in the first place. He wasn't used to messing with his coffee at the condiment bar, since they made it for him, but he stood there staring down into the cup of coffee in front of him as he waited for his drink. He wasn't sure how much sugar Blaine liked, or if he preferred the raw sugar to the regular stuff, but he figured he would just go with what seemed to be a normal amount and if it wasn't right – it was the thought that counted? He just hoped he was right, and after getting little stoppers for the lids of both their drinks and a carrier to be able to take them into the building once he was there, he figured it was too late if he was wrong.

 

He'd planned it out so he would get to work a few minutes early, so he wasn't just jetting off away from his desk as soon as he arrived. It was just like any other day, the way he set his bag down against the short file cabinet tucked under the side of his desk, how he put his coffee beside his keyboard – though he had to take it out of the carrier first that time – and the fact that his eyes immediately glanced down to his keyboard to see the bright square paper that had been left there earlier that morning with a message from Blaine. That message alone was enough for him to know he'd chosen the right day.

 

_SOS. Zzzzz...._

 

Kurt reached for his pad of post-it notes and wrote a quick message on the top one, reaching over for his jar of writing implements and finding a sharpie so he could write Blaine's name on the side of the cup much like Blaine had always done to him. He was glad that the part of the reason he'd never been able to figure out what Blaine was drinking was because there was nothing written on the cup, because that made him feel a little less like he wasn't observant, and once he had the cup labeled and the note stuck to it, he made his way upstairs and back through the little labyrinth of cubicles to deliver the drink. It was slightly trickier to set a cup down without being noticed, but Kurt managed to do it well enough, making sure it was turned so the note was facing Blaine's way, the message of _'EMERGENCY RATIONS'_ clear for when he turned around, which Kurt assumed he would do soon enough considering he knocked lightly against the desk just as he was leaving, to make sure Blaine would get it while it was still hot.

 

By the time he got back down to his desk, which didn't even take him that much time at all, Kurt had a missed call from Blaine – and when he started up his computer he could see there was an email as well.

 

 

> **To: Kurt Hummel**
> 
> You're my hero.

 

That alone was enough to bring a smile to Kurt's face, and he kept it pulled up in the background of the rest of his programs that popped up over top of his email screen, setting straight in to get work done as he slowly sipped at his mocha until it was all gone. There hadn't been any doubt in his mind that Blaine would appreciate it, and he could only assume that he hadn't added too much of anything to it to the point where he wouldn't want to drink it, so for that he was grateful. He could only imagine that the only thing worse than being at work and being tired like that was to be at work and tired, and then taunted by coffee that was then undrinkable.

 

Blaine had also told him the day before that he might not be down or around as much as he would have been otherwise, unsure if his body would be happy with him wanting to go up and down so many stairs when he didn't _need_ to but only _wanted_ to, so Kurt didn't anticipate much in terms of anything beyond emails or maybe a phone call if he was lucky. Those weren't always the most common, because they both worked in such close proximity to other people that it was impossible to have a conversation where it wasn't obvious to everyone around them that they weren't actually talking about work. Even still, that was the reason Kurt was surprised when he got up to retrieve something from the printer and there was a post-it resting on the end of his desk – and he had no idea how long it had been there.

_Seriously. Hero._

Kurt smiled to himself as he moved the note over to the rest, sticking it on top of the pile and looking at it a moment longer before going to the printer as he'd originally planned. As soon as he'd gotten what he'd printed, and delivered it to the person who had requested it, he took a detour on his way back to his desk, heading up the stairs and making his way back to Blaine's desk again.

 

The coffee cup was sitting off to the side, empty and with the lid off, and Blaine was sitting with his arms resting on the edge of his desk, one of them propped on his elbow so he could rest his chin on his free hand as he used the other to tab through what was on his screen. Despite the coffee, it still looked like he was lagging, and Kurt knew that couldn't be helped sometimes because it wasn't like coffee was a cure-all, it was just a good help occasionally. He stepped in through the opening of the cubicle, rapping his knuckles lightly against the edge of the desk before he sat back against it, watching as Blaine glanced over and sat up straighter when he saw him. It was like watching old habits by that point, seeing the way he would turn, how he took his headphones off the same way every time, and how his chair would turn and he would sit the same specific way to look over to where Kurt was.

 

"I thought you were going to give yourself a rest and not go gallivanting off to other departments when it wasn't necessary," Kurt teased softly, tilting his head and watching as Blaine brought a hand up to rub over his face before letting it rest in his lap. It was definitely the most tired Kurt had ever seen him, so clearly evidenced in his eyes and the way he looked like he wanted nothing more than to crawl under his desk and take a nap for a while.

 

"Well it _was_ necessary," Blaine replied, shaking his head and looking up at him. "I had to tell you how great you are."

 

"You'd already done that," Kurt pointed out, resting his hands against the desk on either side of him. "In two different forms, I might add. That made three."

 

"I didn't realize there was a limit." Blaine smiled softly as he pushed up out of his chair to stand, taking a step toward Kurt and reaching out to rest his hand against his arm. "I just have to say it again – _thank you_."

 

It was, Kurt realized as the rush ran through him from the contact of Blaine's fingertips against his sleeve, the first time either of them had actually physically touched each other. He supposed that wasn't as strange as it seemed in his head, because it wasn't exactly like he went around touching his coworkers normally, or even most of his friends. If the occasion called for it, with his friends, sure, it wasn't as though he was opposed, but it was like Blaine was in this weird place where he was both coworker and friend, and easily the person Kurt considered most important in his life that wasn't a close relative, so it seemed odd to him that it hadn't happened before. Then again, they mostly communicated through post-it notes secreted through the office, so maybe he shouldn't have been surprised.

 

"You're welcome," he replied, his tone quiet to avoid disrupting anyone around them, but also because he liked how it felt to be speaking in such hushed tones there in Blaine's cubicle, like they were in their own little world that wasn't in the middle of an office building with people dressed in business casual clothes all around. "I figured it was the least I could do to try and help you get through today."

 

"You have no idea how much it helped," Blaine said, his thumb brushing lightly against the fabric of Kurt's sleeve before he pulled his hand back, and the pressure from his hand was missed almost instantly. "Seriously, Kurt. It was exactly what I needed, and right when I had been about to fall asleep. Looking at a bunch of numbers and coding isn't the best thing for tired eyes."

 

"Glad I could help," Kurt murmured, a soft smile turning up the corners of his mouth as he watched Blaine move in another step, his hand moving down to rest on the desk beside where Kurt's was. "Did it taste alright? I didn't know how much–"

 

"It was _perfect_ ," Blaine cut in with a nod, his gaze flickering up to Kurt's as he smiled a little more. "I didn't know you knew what I got."

 

"I have my ways," Kurt teased, but he preened slightly, glad to have done well with it, especially considering how much Blaine had apparently needed it. "I'm glad, though. I was worried it would be wrong."

 

"No, it was perfect," Blaine repeated, nodding again and looking over to the empty cup on his desk. "Just like I’d made it myself."

 

"Good." Kurt paused, following Blaine's gaze to the cup before clearing his throat softly and straightening up from how he'd been leaning against the desk. "I should probably get back downstairs; I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright."

 

"Better than alright," Blaine replied, looking back over to him and smiling brighter than he had yet since Kurt arrived up there, and he shifted his hand over to where Kurt's was still resting on the desk, curling his fingers over it and giving a light squeeze before pulling his hand away and taking a step back. "Like I said, you're my hero. Thanks, again..."

 

Going back down to his desk felt like something Kurt really didn't want to do, not when Blaine was looking so tired and had almost held his hand, sort of. Going back to work sounded like the worst idea he could have gone with, but he was _at work_ so he couldn't exactly ignore or avoid it, so he made his way back downstairs and to his desk, settling in for the rest of the afternoon with not much else to distract him, because he didn't figure Blaine would be making any more trips down – which was perfectly fine.

 

It was just that he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd wanted to say something more, to _do_ something more, but he hadn't been able to find the words or the right point of conversation where they would have been good to interject.

 

It hadn’t been the right time, though, and definitely not the right day – not when Blaine was barely making it through without falling asleep at his desk. He didn’t want to wait much longer and that was why he thought of it again the next day, when everything seemed back to normal again. At least, it seemed much more normal considering he’d come in to a cheerful note on his keyboard as opposed to the one the day before.

 

The day on the whole was busier than Kurt would have liked, because it didn’t afford him the time to allow himself distractions in the form of going back and forth between floors as much as he would have liked, though it didn’t stop him from managing to do it a few times, and then also the fact that there was too much going on in his head for him to try and focus on the work in front of him. It wasn’t like the thoughts were new, because they were the same ones that had been prodding at him for days, especially since the previous one; it was more like they’d been amplified to the point where he couldn’t ignore them anymore.

 

All he wanted to do when he was at work was to talk to Blaine, but not in the usual ways they communicated – _actually_ talk to him. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to have gotten so easily pulled into distraction when he was there, but by that point he wasn’t sure if there was any other option. Kurt couldn’t imagine going to work and it being like it had been before, where all he did was walk to his desk, sit down for hours at a time staring at computer screens, and then getting up to leave with minimal contact with anyone if he could help it. He couldn’t even remember what it had been like before he’d known Blaine, couldn’t think of how he’d gotten through those days without being completely bored out of his mind. What he wanted was to be able to not have to worry about what was being expected of either of them, to be able to just sit and talk and not have to care about anything going on around them.

 

Trying not to think too much about what he was doing, Kurt grabbed his pad of post-it notes and scrawled out a question across the one on top, reading over it a few times to make sure it was what he wanted to ask before he pulled it from the stack and spun his chair to be able to get up. It was getting close to that point of the day where Blaine left, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to catch him before he did or not. Either way, he headed up the stairs and back to Blaine’s cubicle, but when he leaned around the cubicle wall to drop the note on his desk, Kurt didn’t see him sitting there.

 

It wasn’t necessarily a sign that Blaine was gone for the day, because he wasn’t always sitting there no matter the time of day. There were so many other reasons for him to be away from his desk that weren’t that he wasn’t there at all. Kurt glanced at the clock when he got back down to his own desk, noting that it wasn’t _quite_ late enough for him to be gone, but he never knew – Blaine easily could have left early. Considering that Blaine always dropped by a note on his way out, he figured he would be able to figure that out easily enough, though it made him nervous to anticipate what that note might say if it was in response to the one he’d left upstairs.

 

The problem was that nothing showed up. Kurt looked back to the end of his desk every few minutes, especially when the time rolled around that he _knew_ was when Blaine was actually done, but there was nothing. Part of him thought that he should go upstairs to get the note he’d left, because if Blaine hadn’t gotten it, he didn’t want it sitting there all night for whoever might wander by to see, but then a bigger part thought he’d better not, because if Blaine _had_ gotten it and chosen not to respond, that would have been even worse.

 

Kurt straightened up his desk while he waited for his computer to log off and shut down, convincing himself again that going upstairs to figure out whether Blaine had gotten it or not wasn’t a good idea, and then once the screens were black he slipped his bag over his shoulder, pushed his chair in, and walked away. His mind hadn’t stopped whirring with thoughts since he got back to his desk from his last trek upstairs, and it definitely didn’t stop as he made his way through the corridor to the side door of the building, glancing down at his phone in his hand as he got to the door, slipping it back into his bag as he used his hip to compress the bar on the door and push it open, releasing him back out into the fresh air and natural light that he’d been held captive from for hours.

 

What he didn’t expect to see on the other side was Blaine, who was standing there looking as wonderful as ever, leaning against the wall and clearly waiting for him, if how he straightened up as soon as he saw Kurt was any indication. He was changed from what he’d been wearing earlier in the day, or what Kurt had been able to see of it, his cardigan and polo long gone, replaced with a crisp shirt and a rich colored bow tie that had flecks of something shimmering in the fabric.

 

“Blaine…” Kurt started, his brow furrowing as he took a step away from the door to avoid getting hit if anyone else came out from it. “What are you—”

 

Blaine held out a post-it in front of him, and Kurt recognized his own handwriting on it immediately, looking down at the last note he’d left on Blaine’s desk. _‘Would you want to get dinner with me sometime?’_

 

“Oh, I—” Kurt broke off as Blaine pulled that hand back and held out his other one, a different colored post-it on in his palm, written on in handwriting that was almost as familiar to Kurt as his own, and all it said was one word.

 

_‘Yes.’_

 

Kurt felt all the nerves that had carried over from the time he’d spent sitting inside festering over the possibilities melt away as soon as he read that single word written on the note, and he barely had a chance to glance up at Blaine and take in the sparkle in his eyes, the way the corners of his mouth were turned up in a smile, before he saw movement on his hand again and looked down to see him flip up the post-it to show another one underneath.

 

_‘How about tonight?’_

Biting his lip, Kurt reached down and plucked the notes out of Blaine’s hand, flipping back to the top one and turning it around to hold out to him so it was back to saying _‘Yes.’_  That was all it took to break Blaine out of his silence, a chuckle falling from his lips as he took all the post-its and slipped them into his pocket.

 

“I was hoping it would, I made us a reservation at this Italian place I love.”

 

“Oh you _did_? _”_ Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow at him but smiling a little more all the same, taking a step toward the parking lot and waiting for Blaine to turn to fall in step beside him before actually starting to walk. “That’s awfully forward of you.”

 

“Says the person who asked me out in the first place,” Blaine replied, nudging his shoulder lightly as they stepped down from the curb and onto the asphalt of the lot. “Via note. I was half expecting there to be little boxes for me to check, one to say yes and the other for no…”

 

“Shh…” Kurt said, his nose scrunching slightly as he looked over at him, but that quickly dissolving from how Blaine was just grinning good naturedly. “It worked, didn’t it? Because you made us reservations.”

 

“I did do that,” Blaine confirmed with a nod. “And I think we’ll even make it on time, at that!”

 

“I don’t know about that,” Kurt replied, glancing over toward the nearby road and taking in the traffic backed up from the intersection. “Rush hour traffic… it might be a bit of a problem.”

 

“Don’t worry,” Blaine said, pulling his keys out of his pocket and offering his other hand to Kurt with a smile. “Come on, I know a shortcut.”

 

Blaine’s hand was warm and soft, fingers holding so firmly around Kurt’s but in a way that felt nothing but secure and right, like it was something they’d been doing for years instead of it being the first time. With that being the feeling he had coursing through him as they made their way across the parking lot to the car, to head off to dinner – to a date – together, Kurt felt more of the same that he’d felt earlier that day in regard to what it had been like before he’d known Blaine. He hadn’t been able to remember that, and as Blaine gave his hand one last squeeze before letting it go so he could get in the car, Kurt couldn’t remember what it felt like not to know the way Blaine’s hand melded so perfectly against his.

 

Because why would he want to try and remember that when what he had was so much better?

                                                                                                                                                                                                    

 

 


End file.
